ESL provides support for IBM®'s Customer Information and Control System (CICSTM) through a Dynamic Link Library (DLL) that allows ESL programs to call CICS programs.

To use ESL CICS Support, you should be familiar with:

•CICS Universal Client

•ESL stimulus DLLs

•ESL structured data support

Refer to the Programming Guide for the ESL Language for information on stimulus dlls and structured data support.

See IBM's CICS Universal Client External Call Interface documentation for information about CICS.

ESL is delivered with a DLL that allows an ESL program to call a CICS program. This DLL (ESLCICS.DLL) is an ESL stimulus DLL, and contains three routines;

1.The first routine launches a CICS program,

2.the second retrieves the data that is produced by that program, and

3.the third retrieves error codes.

The DLL uses the CICS Universal External Call Interface (ECI).

The CICS program will begin execution when the first routine is called by the ESL program, and will thereafter execute concurrently with, and on a separate thread from, the ESL application. When the CICS application terminates a stimulus event will be invoked by the DLL. An ESL program can launch up to 50 simultaneously executing CICS programs.

The ESLCICS DLL is delivered with an ESL include file (ESLCICS.INC) that contains the function, subroutine, and structure definitions required to use the DLL within an ESL program. It also contains some constants for the ExtendMode field.

Please see IBM's CICS Universal Client External Call Interface documentation for information on how and when to use these constants and for more information about CICS.

To obtain the CICS code that enables ESL support for the CICS External Call Interface, contact your IBM Support Center.